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Tentrr makes it easy to get into camping by providing the whole base camp – tent, toilet, grill, etc. Plus, each camping spot is private and generally on plots 10+ acres in size. The experience will cost you in the range of $100-200.

Why glamping

I love camping but in Texas the challenges are similar to what the Tentrr founders expressed – state parks are busy, booked months in advance, and offer very little private area to enjoy. Those challenges are compounded with my family of five. As a father, with all those strangers everywhere, I’m constantly scanning to make sure my kids are within eye site and safe. It’s not exactly an enjoyable experience – not to mention all the effort required to pack and unpack for everyone.

Given the growth in camping, outdoor experiences, and experiences in general – this seems like a space ripe with opportunity! As an exercise, I did a quick analysis of the camping space and created a mockup pitch deck with my findings including the opportunity size, competitive landscape, and feature table analysis.

As a product manager, I enjoy doing this type of analysis. If you like this pitch, and want a co-founder, hit me up!

The key to this opportunity

The key in this opportunity is to lock up unique camping spots by developing relationships with land owners. Better yet, secure exclusive contracts with owners before anyone else can. Then you have something unique that cannot be replicated which could then be sold to Tentrr, Hipcamp, AirBnb Experiences, etc.

By its nature, this is a slow process and requires boots on the ground – talking to people one-on-one and scouting out properties. There is a natural growth inhibitor – time. Obviously more money, means more people, and faster increase of camping spots but it’s still a labor intensive process. Tentrr plans to go from 100 to 1,000 sites in 2018. I’m guessing the majority of their Series A cash will go towards hiring camping spot scouts and salespersons.

As Tentrr grows their locations in the East and West coasts, that leaves Texas, Colorado, the whole Midwest wide open. If we started today, we’d be two years behind Tentrr but I think a company could still be built that could reasonably compete with Tentrr or be sold to them in a few years time, say 2-5 years.

Trying to focus to work done can be challenging. Anything extraneous is mental clutter – the icons on your desktop, the five other windows that are open, notifications on you laptop, notifications on your phone, etc. When you get distracted, your brain loses it’s train of thought and it must start over resulting in lost time and depth of thought.

To really do your work and think deeply, you need to eliminate distractions. Distractions drain your mental resources and suck away your creativity.

Before you work, here are a few things to help you be productive.

1) Turn off all notifications on all nearby devices. On a MacBook, you can open the Notification Center on the right of screen, swipe down, and turn on the Do Not Disturb mode.

2) Add an event to your calendar to block off the time. This will discourage other people from taking your time and create a mental space for the work.

3) Define what work you are about to do. Don’t decide what work you are going to do in the time slot – define and decide beforehand so you can immediately get to work. Answer the question: what work am I about to do? What tasks does it involve? Jot down your answers and get to work.

4) Create a distraction free workspace. On a Mac, open a new Desktop with only the files or windows you need to get the work done. Next, open the Think app (link to download) to further eliminate distractions. The Think app creates a black background behind your apps to hide the desktop image, files, and folders, etc. which can be distracting. It’s a handy little app I’ve been using for years.

Hope that helps!

What tools or methods do you use to increase your focus or creativity?